This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
Character | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Organic | Question | Religion | Sense |
John Denham, fully Sir John Denham
All human wisdom, to divine, is folly.
There is nothing so elastic as the human mind. Like imprisoned steam, the more it is pressed the more it rises to resist the pressure. The more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish.
Real human progress depends not so much on inventive ingenuity as on conscience.
Character | Conscience | Ingenuity | Progress | Ingenuity |
There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead, choose death because we cannot forget quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings; remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do this, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
Character | Death | Humanity | Knowledge | Paradise | Progress | Rest | Risk | Wisdom |
George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality.
Character | Impartiality | Soul | Will |
Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
Character | Enemy | Force | Individual | Mankind | Opportunity | Power | Society | Terror | Society |
The height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm without.
Character | Circumstances | Wisdom |
Happiness is fundamental in morals only because happiness is not something to be sought for, but is something now attained, even in the midst of pain and trouble, whenever recognition of our ties with nature and with fellow-men releases and informs our action.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
It seems not to be true that there is a power in the universe, which watches over the well-being of every individual with parental care and brings all his concerns to a happy ending. On the contrary, the destinies of man are incompatible with a universal principle of benevolence or with - what is to some degree contradictory - a universal principle of justice... Dark, unfeeling, and unloving powers determine human destiny; the system of rewards and punishments, which according to religion, governs the world, seems to have no existence.
Benevolence | Care | Character | Destiny | Existence | Happy | Individual | Justice | Man | Power | Religion | System | Universe | World |
To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does, but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.
Body | Character | Energy | Life | Life | Man | Wise | Work |
J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Our task is to discover the primordial, absolutely unconditioned first principle of all human knowledge... It is intended to express that Act which does not and cannot appear among the empirical states of our consciousness, but rather is at the basis of all consciousness and alone makes it possible.
Character | Consciousness | Knowledge | Wisdom |